ntion to these _few_ persons and their posterity. Why, if your
Honors please, our territory embraces at the least estimate _three
millions of these human beings_, who, by our laws and institutions, as
now existing in these states, * * * are not only consigned to hopeless
bondage throughout their whole lives, but to a like condition is their
posterity consigned to the remotest times. * * * It is a question of the
mightiest magnitude. But the reason why I call your Honors' attention to
its magnitude is this: that you may contemplate it in the connection in
which my learned friend has presented it; that it is a SIN--a violation
of natural justice and the law of God; that it is a monstrous scheme of
iniquity for defrauding the laborer of his wages--one of those sins that
crieth aloud to heaven for vengeance; that it is a course of unbridled
rapine, fraud, and plunder, by which three millions and their posterity
are to be oppressed throughout all time. Now, is it a sin? Is this an
outrage against divine law and natural justice? _If it be_ such an
outrage, then I say it is a sin of the greatest magnitude, of the most
enormous and flagitious character that was ever presented to the human
mind. The man who does not shrink from it with horror is utterly
unworthy the name of a man. It is no trivial offence, that may be
tolerated with limitations and qualifications; that we can excuse
ourselves for supporting because we have made some kind of a bargain to
support it. The tongue of no human being is capable of depicting its
enormity; it is not in the power of the human heart to form a just
conception of its wickedness and cruelty. And what, I ask, is the
rational and necessary consequence, if we regard it to be thus sinful,
thus unjust, thus outrageous?"

* * *

Dr. Hopkins, of Newport, being much engaged in urging the sinfulness of
slavery, called one day at the house of Dr. Bellamy in Bethlem,
Connecticut, and while there pressed upon him the duty of liberating his
only slave. Dr. B., who was an acute and ingenious reasoner, defended
slaveholding by a variety of arguments, to which Dr. H. as ably replied.
At length Dr. Hopkins proposed to Dr. Bellamy practical obedience to the
golden rule. "Will you give your slave his freedom if he desires it?"
Dr. B. replied that the slave was faithful, judicious, trusted with
every thing, and would not accept freedom if offered. "Will you free him
if _he_